Funds scrapped for pro-Palestinian film

The Israel Film Fund on Tuesday decided to
suspend funding for a film by an Israeli director that reportedly
compares the occupation of the West Bank to the Holocaust.

The decision came as Israeli leaders were heading to Europe on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The film Lipstikka
was created by Israeli actor and director Jonathan Sagall to portray
his mother's experience in the Holocaust. Sagall, who starred in the
popular 1978 Israeli film Eskimo Limon, received funding for
the project five years ago and later decided to transport his mother's
tale to Ramallah, where instead of the Nazis, two girls struggle
against the Israeli occupation.

The controversial treatment first came to light after Israeli columnist Yair Lapid wrote an article in last Friday's Yediot Aharonot in which he quoted a passage from a brochure he had received, advertising Lipstikka:

"It
took a lot to convince the Israel Film Fund that the occupation is
worse than Israel has ever admitted to and that it is possible to
compare the occupation to the Holocaust."

After Lapid's column was published, the IFF
announced that it was freezing its support of the film, which had been
slated to receive NIS 1.3 million in state funds, NIS 850,000 of which
had already been invested in the production.

Israel Radio
reported Tuesday that the decision to suspend funding came following a
direct request from Minister of Culture and Sports Limor Livnat.

The
IFF has also denied any connection to the brochure and its wording. The
IFF further said that when it had approved the funding, the script it
had received had not presented the same comparisons as those described
in the brochure.

An article from last year on Variety.com described the movie as
"a psychological thriller about the lifelong emotional and sexual bond
between two Palestinian women."